by Jonathan Stroud, 421 pages, Grades 6 and up.

The future in the U.K. is desolate and contaminated with radiation and strange dangerous creatures such as blood-otters and large wolves, but Scarlett is a scrappy orphan who uses cleverness and ingenuity to get by. She is technically a thief, but you can’t help but appreciate the imaginative ways she goes about relieving banks and other people of their money. She does have a kind heart, as it turns out, which is how she becomes connected to Albert Browne. He is a bit of an oddball that she picks up in the wreckage of a bus crash, and though she thinks she is only helping him get to safety so she can continue her solitary outlaw life, their lives are quickly entangled. Albert may not be the innocent needing protection that he seems to be, or is he? Albert and Scarlett narrowly escape death and capture many times as they find themselves on the adventure of lifetime together.

Check here for this book's availability.

If you like a good adventure you might also enjoy: Aurora Rising, by Amie Kaufman, Renegades, by Marissa Meyer, Refugee, by Alan Gratz, or The Reader, by Traci Chee.

Tags: adventure, suspense, dystopias, friendship, fantasy